Now Playing: Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings by Father John Misty 

Word Raccoon asks permission to write at a local café today.
I must respectfully deny her request.

It’s not any one reason. Just several that, taken together, make going out into what promises to be a gloomy day feel deeply unappealing.

I mean, what’s the point?

Fine, she says. She gets it. There are things she knows I claim I need to do, like clean the Dutch oven I used yesterday to great effect (love those things). She also saw me bring down the bag for the Christmas tree and will not forgive me if I don’t stop seeing it as a body bag because Jesus, it’s only Tuesday.

She knows my thumb has been a PITA the last few days, and she says I absolutely should not write that it reminds me of a rattlesnake’s rattle. I wish I didn’t know what one looks like, but I do. I’ve taken the pain reliever, after ironically having to wrestle it out of the childproof bottle. I really need to put that somewhere easier to access when my fingers are behaving.

WR thought she might have to gnaw the cap off a Coke Zero for me this morning, but I managed.

I managed, too, yesterday, when I felt the tiniest bit smug sitting down entirely alone for the first time this year to do the writing thing. You know. Plan. Plot. I even had “put new poetry into Google Docs” on my calendar. It’s there weekly, so if I miss a week, I know I’ll eventually move things where they belong.

The first batch was fun. Reading back over what I’d written. TBH, I’d forgotten some of it.

The second batch…

Earlier that morning, I’d received an email from the funeral home’s automated we’ll check in weekly until you feel more normal list. I shrugged and thought, That’s nice, but I think I’m doing okay.

As I parted the curtains and moved my writing table and chair by the window, I thought, See. I’m fine.
(WR asked for the pink chair. I told her no. I didn’t want to feel silly. I wanted to feel grounded.)

When will I learn?

Some days it doesn’t take much.

I did all the usual. Just feel it. Let it out. It will be over soon. You know the drill.

Then I went back to the poetry. Except it was from late October.

Oh.
Oh no.
Yep.

Raw grief on the page. Dripping with it.

I transferred about half of it before deciding it was time for a lunch break. I might not finish it today, but I will sometime this week. I don’t remember this particular little trove of poems, but I will preserve it.

Unrelated to grief, I also found a stash of lines and half-poems I want to use someday.

The rest of the day claimed me. The van is almost certainly totaled, so decisions must be made.

I went to the gym.

I made supper in the aforementioned Dutch oven, and it was good.

I spent a few hours combing through submission opportunities for the month and updating my response log. Two rejections yesterday, one an “almost.” The editor said it stayed in the top poems until near the end and encouraged me to submit again. Gladly.

I submitted two poems to a 24-hour contest focused on music. The poems are grief-adjacent, though I’m not sure you could smell it on them unless you knew where to look.

Last night I spent too much time researching the flora and fauna of the place I consider my hometown. (If you weren’t born there, is it still that? I will fight you if you say no.) I knew much of it, but not enough. I’m not writing about it, not just now, but I saw a video of it. Those hills. Those trees. I missed them. Missed is inadequate for the ache.

I was reminded of the umbrella-like mayapple, the deep layers of ferns, the early-summer pink rhododendron, and the undulating roads. I think I could get lost in all that if I let myself.

This morning, I thought about sleeping in. I slept better than the night before, but not great. I wanted to get up. Do something.

I tried listening to The Bookbinder on audiobook that I started yesterday, but they’re deep into loss-of-lives-to-war passages right now, so I turned it off. Not today.

WR asked about the café, as I said. I think she already knew by the ugly sweater I put on that it wasn’t happening. Wait until she hears I really do intend to take the indoor tree down and fold laundry.

I am going to humor her with a writing schedule.

Sadly, neither of us wants to work on the novel today.

I don’t know if new material is in the works either. Maybe it’s strictly a planning day.

So far, we’ve done nothing but eat breakfast. A Clif Bar. Who’s cooking? DH will be eating dinner elsewhere with his bestie, so it’s strictly subsistence eating for me today, assembly, not cooking, required.

Engage hermit mode, WR. At least for today.
We’ll reevaluate tomorrow.